


so vacant and kind

by eurythmix



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, College, Depression, I'm gonna be real with you there is very little comfort here, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Pre-Canon, Religious Guilt, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Shaving, [ben wyatt voice] it's about the yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 11:07:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19828903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurythmix/pseuds/eurythmix
Summary: At first he thinks it’s normal, because the other option - that it’s not, that Dennis is deliberately ignoring him - hurts more than he’d like to admit.Mac checks up on Dennis at college.





	so vacant and kind

**Author's Note:**

> well I've been working on this on and off since november 2018, so if there's a huge shift in tone blame that on my sporadic writing schedule. for [rose](http://macfoundhispride.tumblr.com), who is directly responsible for making me think about the inherent repression of college-era macdennis. thank u for cheering me through this honeybee 
> 
> title from the national's [this is the last time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LsvXIToXRo). alternatively titled 'ah shit here we go again'

At first he thinks it’s normal, because the other option - that it’s not, that Dennis is deliberately ignoring him - hurts more than he’d like to admit. College is just like that, right? Kids move away, fuck around, lose contact, and come back as men. Except Dennis isn’t interstate, and even if he was, he had promised to call at least once a week. The last time they had spoken on the phone, Mac got the impression Dennis hadn’t really heard a word he’d said.

So he takes the 45 to South Street and crosses the river, head low so he doesn’t have to look the students walking past in the eye. Dennis’ frat is on the west side and the doors are wide open, so either there’s a party going on or their security is seriously lacking. _Anyone_ could just bust in, steal a bunch of crap, totally wail on someone not anticipating an attack. Mac’s coming up with an argument for UPenn to hire him as security detail when he’s stopped by a shirtless guy wobbling under the weight of two twelve packs perched precariously on his shoulder. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” He readjusts the beer, fixing Mac with the judgey bullshit look he probably received from every jerk since stepping foot on campus. Instead of retaliating - which he absolutely could, with devastating consequences - Mac just rolls his eyes.

“Uh, I’m Dennis’ friend? Dennis Reynolds?” He rubs the back of his neck, cheeks flushing. “He’s not answering his phone; just wanted to see if he was okay.”

The frat dude’s skinny rat face screws up in distaste, or maybe annoyance. It doesn’t matter, because he’s already walking away before Mac can question it, throwing over his shoulder a quick, snorted, “Good fucking luck.”

Mac frowns after him for a moment; frat dudes are, in his experience, total assholes, but not all cryptic and shit. He has half a mind to run after him and demand a straight answer, but the stairwell is empty, and - well. Something about gift horses, he supposes. 

He takes the stairs two at a time, thankfully not passing any other douchebags on his way to Dennis’ room. Dennis got a single in second year; Mac’s leading theory is that he blew the lady who assigns rooms into giving him sweeter digs. When he told Charlie about his hunch he’d just received a blank look; to be fair, they were both on a shitload of shrooms at the time. 

The point is that Dennis has a single room, which means he’s all the way up the top of this place, and Mac refuses to admit he’s out of breath by the time he reaches his door. It’s a hot day for the season, that’s all - and he did walk all the way here from the bus stop. It takes him a minute to catch his breath, inhaling through his nose to slow himself down. There’s still this nervous, jittery feeling in his chest, but at least he’s not panting like a loser when he knocks on Dennis’ door.

“Hey, man. It’s Mac. You in?” 

He’s probably not - he’s probably in class or getting wasted or banging the admin chick again. He’s probably got better things to do than wait for Mac to come crawling to him.

“Dennis?” He tests the doorknob - it’s open. Honestly, fuck this place and it’s shit security. Mac is definitely going to bring this up with the Dean. Someone - Dennis, for example - could get hurt without Mac here to protect them. 

“Hey, Den, I’m coming in,” he calls, pushing the door open. If Dennis isn’t in he can hang out on his beanbag until he comes back. He knows Dennis has his own stash of booze hidden under a loose floorboard; every time Mac says he could be brought up for possession, Dennis shoots him this look like, _seriously? You’re preaching about possession to me?_ To which Mac always replies, _yeah, but this is college, dude, they could kick you out for this, and then you’d be just like Dee_ \- and then Dennis goes all cold and distant and spends the rest of the night snapping at him. So, not ideal. He’s aiming for chill, not Dennis totally blowing up in his face like he does whenever Dee is brought up lately.

Inside the lights are off and the curtains are drawn, and the room smells kinda weird, like dried sweat and dust. Mac swallows, the feeling in his chest spreading to his fingertips as he flicks the lightswitch.

It’s empty - at least, that’s what Mac thinks for a second, until the lump of blankets on Dennis’ bed moves and, shit, that’s probably Dennis. There’s a groan, and a tuft of greasy hair pokes out of the comforter; definitely Dennis.

“Hey, bud,” Mac says, drawing out the words as he makes his way over to the bed. He realises belatedly that it’s the same tone he used with Poppins whenever his eye slid out, but that’s not important. What is important is that Dennis hasn’t even reacted beyond shuffling further into the blankets, the crown of his head disappearing back into a sea of cotton. He doesn’t move when Mac places a hand on what he’s pretty sure is Dennis’ ankle and rubs his thumb against it. “You coming down with something?”

No answer. Three floors below there’s a muted thump and someone shouting unintelligibly. 

“Den?”

No answer. He wonders if it was the guy from earlier buckling under the weight of that beer. 

“Yo, Dennis. Wake up, buddy.”

No answer. It probably was. Mac can’t really bring himself to find it funny.

“Dennis? You’re freaking me out, dude. What’s up?”

Finally another groan slips through the blankets and Dennis mutters something unintelligible, like he’s underwater. Mac repeats his question, shaking Dennis a little, and he must be annoying enough to deserve a real response, because the comforter is pulled back and -

“Holy shit,” Mac blurts, “who fucking died?”

Dennis glares at him, an expression that matches all too well with the deep purple stamps under his eyes. His hair is longer than the last time Mac saw him and it’s curling around his ears, the tips just brushing the stubble - no, _beard_ \- that’s taken up residence over Dennis’ cheeks like flies on dog shit. It could be a good look if his cheekbones weren’t so goddamn sharp, or his skin so sallow and dry.

“What do you want?” Dennis asks, his voice all raspy like he’s just woken up from a coma or something. And, yeah, that could also be cool and sexy if he wanted it to be, but there’s literally no emotion in Dennis’ words. It’s like someone’s taken a vacuum to his soul and sucked all the Dennis out - except it’s not like that, because this is Dennis too, in a way. It’s more like when there’s a flashback in a TV show and the colours on screen go kinda dull and grey: the same thing, just a little less vibrant, a little less real. 

Mac reaches over, his fingers hovering awkwardly near Dennis’ cheek. Dennis doesn’t even breathe, let alone move away, so he takes that as permission to touch. It’s scratchy, of course, but when Mac follows the grain it’s actually a bit soft, like a dog with a short pelt. Not that he’d ever call Dennis a dog to his face, though he has been acting like a bitch lately. It’s just - nice. Familiar, in its own unfamiliar way.

Dennis has closed his eyes and is leaning against Mac’s palm, mouth parted. If Mac twisted his wrist just a little, Dennis’ lips would brush against his skin, a kiss in everything but name. 

They’re not like that. It just looks like it, from far away.

“I thought you hated having a beard,” Mac mumbles, thumb brushing dangerously close to the soft skin under Dennis’ eye. He could do a lot of damage from here, like stick his fingers through Dennis’ eyes, or strangle him - and Dennis would just let him, that’s the thing that’s fucked up. It’s always been like this, Dennis showing his underbelly when he thinks he’s in charge. As his self-appointed, bona-fide protector, Mac’s gotta watch out for him when he’s like this. There’s no telling what people might do - what Dennis might do - if Mac lets his guard down.

“I do,” Dennis mutters, plucking Mac out of his thoughts like a coin fished from a wishing well. He’s lifted straight back into reality where Dennis is twenty-two and fully capable of beating him off if (when) Mac does snap. 

“Then why -”

Dennis sighs and pulls back. “Just didn’t feel like shaving,” he says, dropping his head to his knees. Mac’s hand is left hanging, skin still prickling from the rasp of Dennis’ beard, and he hastily shoves it in his pocket. He’s glad Dennis can’t see his face, the way his dumb blush creeps up his neck. 

He’s tempted to ask why, but then Mac remembers all the winters that have been before, every time he’s seen Dennis like this. There’s something about this, whatever it is, that brooks no argument. Asking would just piss him off anyway, so Mac does what he does in every crisis and acts like a calm, rational leader.

“Uh,” he says, “do you wanna, like. Shower or something?”

Admittedly, it takes a while for the whole calm, rational leader thing to kick into gear. 

Dennis looks up from his knees to squint at him. “What?”

“I - you should get cleaned up. Y’know, shave and stuff.”

He’d almost forgotten how small Dennis makes him feel sometimes, looking at him like that - like he’s an ant and Dennis is the sun and the magnifying glass tilted in just the right angle. Even half-hearted, the sneer to Dennis’ lips forces Mac to backtrack, hands held up intuitively. “Just trying to take care of you, man.”

Dennis sniffs. “I can take care of myself,” he murmurs, so quiet Mac wonders if he even spoke at all. In the time Dennis has been gone he’s imagined thousands of little conversations between them - Dennis telling him about his classes, Dennis telling him about all the co-eds he’s banged, Dennis telling him that he’s missed him too. It hasn’t taken long for Dennis to become a ghost in the recesses of his consciousness, something to talk to while Mac’s waiting for the bus or bored at work. If Mac closes his eyes, right here in Dennis’ dorm room, it’s almost like being back in his bed and making up words for his own personal Dennis to say back to him.

His Dennis says, _I’m sorry, something’s wrong, please help me._ His Dennis gets violent and angry and is the same asshole he always is, but after screaming himself hoarse in the back of Mac’s mind, he lets Mac hold him. 

It’s February. Dennis called him on Christmas Eve and hung up when Mac asked if he was okay. Mac didn’t call back, and his Dennis kept him awake all night asking why. 

If he’s honest, his Dennis is becoming a real fucking nuisance. 

“Come on, bitch,” Mac sighs, getting to his feet and tugging at Dennis’ bony shoulders, “Get up. You smell like shit.”

“Fuck you,” Dennis growls back, shaking Mac’s hands off him. He throws off the comforter and staggers to his feet, swaying a little but still standing upright through sheer spite alone. “Stay here,” he orders, grabbing a towel from the back of his desk chair, “and _don’t_ drink my booze.”

Mac holds up two fingers. “Scout’s honour,” he says solemnly, “Swear on my mom’s life, dude.”

* * *

Mac is halfway through a six pack when Dennis returns. He must be really out of it, because he doesn’t even bitch about Mac leaving empty cans under his desk.

“You didn’t shave.”

“What are you, my keeper?” Dennis flings a damp towel over the back of his chair, narrowly missing Mac’s head, and collapses onto his bed. From his spot nestled in his beanbag, Mac can see Dennis’ fingers tapping restlessly against his thigh. He’s wearing the same baggy sweats as before and Mac frowns.

“Dude. Get changed.”

Dennis flips him the bird without raising his head.

"You’ll feel better,” he wheedles.

Dennis snorts. “Doubt it.” He drops his hand and exhales hard, like any fight he possessed has been ripped out from beneath him. “Whatever. Leave me alone.”

Mac swallows the last of his beer. “No way,” he says, struggling out of the beanbag. “As your best friend, I have the authority to tell you when you’re being a dumbass, and it’s my oblignation-”

“Obligation.”

“ _Obligation_ ,” Mac stresses, “to take care of you. I’m reading you the riot act.”

That, at least, makes Dennis sit up. “The _what_?” 

“The riot act. You know, like, _if you don’t listen to me, I’m gonna start a riot, and then that’s on you_. It’s in the constitution.”

“That’s not what you think it is,” Dennis says, quiet, his lips barely even moving, “and I told you, I’m fine.” 

“Wrong,” Mac retorts, jabbing a finger in Dennis’ direction as he wanders over to the wardrobe in the corner, “and wrong.” He throws open the door and pulls out the first drawer he finds - socks, haphazardly matched. He grabs a pair and tosses it over his shoulder. “You just need to freshen up, y’know, go out somewhere.” He turns, holding up two pairs of jeans.

Dennis wordlessly points to the pair in his left hand. It sails through the air, landing on his lap, and Mac opens another drawer. “There’s a new Mexican place on Market.”

“Not hungry,” Dennis mumbles. Mac ignores him.

“I think _Twister_ is still playing,” he says, rifling through Dennis’ button-downs, “or there’s that new Bruce Willis movie. Y’know, with the aliens and shit.” He picks out an old sweatshirt, something Dennis wore back in high school, and spins on his heel to pass it over. Dennis is sitting there, motionless, jeans held in limp hands. He’s not quite looking at Mac - sort of through him, like Mac is a piece of furniture.

“Den?”

“Hmm?” Dennis tilts his head, eyes sliding over Mac’s midriff without taking anything in. He belatedly takes the sweatshirt from Mac’s outstretched hand and stares at it for a long moment before shucking his old shirt.

Dennis has always been slim, ribs casting fine shadows across his torso like cotton pulled taut over guitar strings, but this is different. This isn’t refusing Mac’s stash because he’s baked it all into brownies, nor is it getting up at six during winter to jog around the neighbourhood with the old, rich ladies who want to stay forty forever. There’s no purpose, nothing to show off; Dennis tugs on the sweatshirt in quick, jerky movements and curls his arms around his stomach like he’s covering up the evidence.

Mac takes a steady breath, then another, then a third just so his voice doesn’t crack. “Den, you’re not okay.”

For once, Dennis doesn’t snap back. He’s just sitting there, cross-legged on his bed, eyes half-lidded. He scratches his chin absently, more out of instinct than any of the carefully curated performances Mac is used to watching, and there’s something about the motion, the sound of overgrown fingernails on stubble, that gives him enough push to act.

“Where’s your shaving kit?”

“What?”

“Your shaving kit,” Mac repeats, already hunting around the room. He finds a small plastic bowl on the dresser, a few stale Dorito crumbs dusting the bottom, and upends it over the trash can. 

“Desk. Second drawer.”

Mac unearths a familiar wooden box, the aged oak set Dennis received from his mom for his eighteenth birthday. He flicks it open, taking stock of the fine horsehair brush, expensive lather, musky aftershave -

“Where the fuck are your razors?” He asks, holding up the steel handle sans cap. There are no loose blades in the box and his ribcage squeezes tightly, a dozen possibilities pressing down on his lungs. “Dennis?”

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting - a story, maybe, or some feigned surprise - but when he turns around Dennis hasn’t even moved. He’s picking at his thumbnail like it’s the most engrossing thing in the world.

Mac’s chest tightens further. “Den, you’re not -”

Dennis hooks his foot under the bed and drags out a shoebox. He kicks it over to Mac without looking, still plucking at the skin around his cuticle. 

There are certain things Mac and Dennis don’t talk about, and it’s a list that only grows as they get older. It’s this-for-that, _I won’t tell if you don’t_ ; sometimes their secrets overlap like leaves on the sidewalk, separate but the same, and from a distance it’s all one big pile of words that never got out. It’d be easy - too easily, too tempting - to run around and mess it all up, say everything bottled up inside his head and tell the truth for once in his goddamn life, but -

Dennis is staring at him. 

Mac bends down. He takes a painstakingly sterile blade out of the shoebox without looking at the rest of its contents, slots it into the shaver head, and places the full razor on the desk beside the other tools.

“I’ll be back,” he mutters, grabbing the bowl and walking quickly out of the room. It’s only when he’s shut the door behind him that he can breathe properly without wanting to puke. 

One thing Mac has wanted to say for a while is, _I’m tired_ . He’s twenty-one and bussing tables at some crappy diner and he shouldn’t feel this heavy all the time, but he does, and he knows it’s Dennis’ fault. He’s imagined telling him - _I’m tired, I’m done, I can’t live with you messing with my head, you need to talk to someone else, please_ \- but that’s when the exhaustion hits, and the guilt, and the nagging responsibility that makes him take those dumb feelings and shove them back down into his gut where they can bubble away without being a nuisance. 

If there’s anything his dad taught him before being locked up, it’s that his feelings don’t really matter. Not when there are other people with bigger problems. Not when he’s too weak to carry the weight of his own bullshit. 

So, Mac swallows. He closes his eyes for a moment, flexes his free hand, stretches his fingers until the joints crack. When he curls it back into a fist, he pictures himself strangling the cowardice in his chest and watching the bad thoughts suffocate beneath his palm.

His throat burns as he wanders down the corridor, glancing around corners for the bathroom. The house is oddly hushed; the dude from earlier must have gone to some other party. If he’s really quiet, Mac can just make out someone talking in the foyer. Otherwise, the place might as well be a cemetery for all the life it contains.

 _Creepy_ , he thinks, pushing open the last door on the floor. It’s a bathroom, alright; depressingly small and smelling sharply of bleach, but at least it has running water. The tiles beneath his shoes are damp from Dennis’ shower, like he had just stood in front of the basin and let the water drip off him. As Mac turns the tap on and waits for the water to heat, he can’t help but glance up at the tiny, toothpaste-flecked mirror. 

Maybe it’s the fluorescents, but he doesn’t feel like he’s looking at himself. There’s something not-right in the way his skin catches the light, or the downturned slant of his lips. It’s like - and the thought rises, unbidden, Mac can’t stop himself from wondering - it’s like he’s caught whatever Dennis has and it’s already infecting his system, rotting him from the inside out.

He inhales sharply when the water runs hot, scalding the soft skin of his palms. It’s strange, he thinks, how quickly the shock of pain jerks him out of the quagmire he’d been sinking into. As he fumbles for the cold tap he wonders if this is why Dennis does it, just to get out of his own head once in a while. Mac’s never been one for understanding the _why_ , but this - the lingering sting, the give-and-take of it all - feels like uncovering something that has been there the entire time.

 _Stop it_ , he tells himself. _Don’t be fucking weird about it_ , the residual traces of Dennis tell him.

He fills the bowl with lukewarm water and carefully walks back to Dennis’ room. A bit spills over the side when he transfers it from one hand to the other, tiny rivers curving over his knuckles and down his shirtsleeves as he opens the door. Dennis is where he left him, spread-eagled on the bed with his eyes fixed on the off-white ceiling. 

Mac clears his throat and sets down the bowl. “Alright, man, let’s do this,” he says, tossing a terse smile in Dennis’ direction. He finishes setting up his makeshift barbershop, uncapping the lather and grabbing Dennis’ used towel from the chair. “Come on, up you get.”

He doesn’t really expect Dennis to obey; if anything he’s expecting a protest, for Dennis to storm over and throw the bowl in his face. He’s waiting for Dennis to get his second wind but it never comes, instead gusting over and leaving Dennis slow, lethargic. He makes his way over to the desk, dragging his feet, and drops onto the chair like he’s swallowed lead. 

Mac coughs again. Staring down at Dennis, having his mouth mere inches from his crotch, feels wildly inappropriate, but not for the usual reasons. If they were piss-drunk and horny he could justify the embarrassment as some kind of propriety thing, about how he’s not gay and neither is Dennis. This, though; this feels wrong in a way he doesn’t want to examine too closely. This feels like something powerful.

Dennis’ eyes flicker up to meet his. He’s watching Mac again, plaintive, lips slack and pliant. Mac pictures slipping his thumb over his Cupid’s bow and tracing its shape, mapping the delicate, flushed border between skin and mouth before finally sliding his fingers all the way in. 

He could do it. He could do it so easily. 

Dennis blinks slowly, languidly. “Mac?” he whispers, voice low and unbearably soft. His breath ghosts over Mac’s wrist and Mac recoils, cradling his arm against his chest. 

“Um,” Mac flounders, hastily spinning on his heel and grabbing at the shaving kit. He can feel Dennis’ eyes on him, tracking his every movement, and the blush on Mac’s cheeks only grows hotter. He overestimates his reach and fumbles over the lather, almost sending the whole set up flying with shaky, clumsy hands. 

Though he’s never had a kit as fancy as Dennis’, Mac could shave with his eyes closed. Sure, he nicks himself pretty much every time, but he thinks he does a decent enough job for someone who learnt from movies. The motions, however bastardised, are simple: dip the brush in water and lather it in soap. Easy.

Except Mac’s skin is prickling like that time in fifth grade when he was cast as the Lion in a school production of _The Wizard of Oz_ and he forgot all of his lines on stage. Or whenever he goes to visit his dad and tries to come up with something good to say, anything that will make him proud. His throat has closed up without him realising, tongue swelling with the weight of the excuses he’s stuffed down there, and his fingertips have started to tingle like the cut end of a live wire. 

Mac takes a shallow breath and forces himself into action. _Brush, soap, lather._ He’s done it a hundred times before and he’ll do it a hundred times again. For a few seconds he pretends it’s just him hunched awkwardly in his miniscule bathroom at home, tidying up his stubble because his stick-up-the-ass boss has complained it’s looking unprofessional. That, at least, calms him down enough to work up a decent lather.

Turning around and applying it to Dennis’ cheeks, however, is a completely different ballpark.

Feigning a lightness that has long since left him, Mac fixes a casual smile and pivots on his heel. “Alright!” He cringes at his own forced breeziness but plows on, tapping Dennis’ prickly chin with the end of the brush. “Tip your head back.”

Dennis takes a second to squint at him, obviously not fooled, but does as he says without objection. His eyes slip shut, completing the picture of total vulnerability: neck exposed, hands limp on his lap, and frown lines smoothed. His tongue slips out leisurely, wetting his chapped lips, and Mac’s grip on the brush tightens.

He paints Dennis’ cheeks with a barely shaking hand, carefully coating every bristle with thick, white lather. The only sound beside the blood roaring through Mac’s ears is the rhythmic, familiar rasp of brush against skin.

Until, without warning: “Thanks.”

Mac’s hand stills above Dennis’ chin. A pearl of lather drips from the end of the brush, landing on Dennis’ throat and trickling down towards the cavern of his sweatshirt. Dennis doesn’t even open his eyes, doesn’t acknowledge the foam seeping down his chest; head tilted back, brow levelled, and it’s like they’re the only people left on Earth.

“Oh,” Mac exhales, “well. No problem, man.” He dabs at the stubble over Dennis’ lips and refuses to think about how pink they are, how soft he knows they are. He slips, just a little, enough to stain the corner of Dennis’ mouth with lather, and without thinking he wipes it away with his thumb.

Dennis mouth parts instinctively. The breath in Mac’s lungs seizes, curdles, and struggles to escape his throat as a strangled, senseless noise.

The guilt hits like a tsunami, drawing back before crashing down all at once. He finishes lathering Dennis’ cheeks quickly, a few clumsy strokes across his jaw, and trips over his own feet moving back. He sets the brush on the desk with heavy, discordant hands, and clenches his fists ‘til his bones ache. _Pussy_ , he thinks, and grabs the razor before the impulse can unravel any further. 

But it’s like smoke slipping through his fingers when he turns back to Dennis. There’s something soft and sharp there, like a bedrock of broken glass under a fresh sheet of snow, and the spool of his thoughts trails down all the paths he’s told himself not to follow. It’s full of images of Dennis like this but in some shabby, sun-lit apartment on the North side; Dennis tangled in his arms, sleepy and warm; Dennis, but not Dennis at all. Some gentler version of his best friend who eats three meals a day and talks about his feelings and doesn’t go all ghost on Mac when shit hits the fan.

Mac screws his eyes shut ‘til colours bloom behind the lids, tiny specks of cold light chasing away the yellow-tinted vision of Dennis spread out under his palms. It takes a few seconds, enough strain on his brow to feed the tension headache growing in his temples, but when he opens his eyes all the heat has leached from the room. All that’s left is Dennis, a little grey, a little worn out, and covered in rapidly melting shaving cream.

He sidles back to Dennis’ side, careful to make enough noise with his footsteps not to freak him out. The first drag of the razor against his cheek feels almost too easy to be real; it’s the feeling Mac gets when he drives, the simplicity behind jerking the wheel into oncoming traffic or taking his hands off altogether. He reminds himself there’s a safety guard separating blade from skin as he continues, movements as steady as he can force them to be.

Dennis’ nose twitches when Mac gets to his upper lip and Mac pulls away from his next stroke. “Keep goin’,” Dennis murmurs, and he sounds so close to falling asleep that some of the tension in Mac’s body softens. “Feels good.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Dennis whispers. It’s the most honest thing Mac’s heard him say in years, so of course he follows it with a defensive, “Shut up.”

Mac doesn’t bother to hold back the laughter bubbling in his chest. “Whatever, dude,” he says, moving to the sharp line of Dennis’ jaw, “You’re so needy.”

“Am not,” Dennis mutters. There’s nothing behind it, no real heat - something softer, instead. Close to affectionate in the way that violence is close to touch. Mac tilts Dennis’ head back further with the barest brush of his fingertips, skimming the razor along his Adam’s apple, and takes a long moment to soak in the warmth just a hairsbreadth beneath him. Just for a handful of seconds the anxiety thrumming across his skin is smothered like a hug, or a chokehold.

“Are you done?”

A muscle in Mac’s jaw ticks. “Almost.” His grip on the razor tightens infinitesimally. He’s tempted to go even slower, just draw it out long enough to piss Dennis off, but shame burns his movements down to a bare splinter of what he wants. That’s a sin, isn’t it? Wanting, or needing? Mac isn’t sure which one; maybe all of them, packed tight beneath Dennis’ skin, leaking out like sunlight. Whatever it is, it feels too good to be right.

 _Why do you have to be right?_ His Dennis whispers in his ear, curled tight around his shoulders like the serpent of Eden. _Isn’t this enough?_

Mac bites his lip. 

He spent a lot of time at St Monica as a kid. The deacon who led the boy’s choir was a wiry old man, faint as smoke from a blown candle, but he had a set of lungs on him that could fill the nave. Mac remembers standing at the front of the tenors and listening to him demonstrate the Kyrie eleison, his voice clean and crisp as the first day of fall. He remembers thinking, beneath the itchy restlessness that was always buried under his skin, that maybe that could be him one day: part of something bigger than himself, a thread in the tapestry. Priests didn’t get chicks, sure, but Mac wasn’t sure how he felt about getting married anyway. 

He asked Father Gallagher if he could join the choir permanently, not just during school holidays. Father Gallagher clapped him on the shoulder, laughed, and told him in not so many words that there are some things boys like him weren’t meant to be. 

Mac still hung about at Monica’s every summer; he just stopped stepping past the pulpit.

There are certain things Mac has allowed himself in this lifetime: cheap pleasures, quick fixes, one night stands with ugly girls who don’t think much of him either. It feels good in a way that’s going to backfire on you, like throwing back Jägerbombs after a round of beers. There’s going to come a day when Mac regrets a lot of the things he’s done, but this isn’t that day. He can pretend a little longer.

Like a held breath being punched out, Mac swipes the last of the shaving cream off Dennis’ cheek. His hand lingers over his Adam’s apple, thumb stroking his neck through a layer of terry cloth. There was a story he heard at Monica’s once about this woman who cut her lovers’ hair and betrayed him to the enemy - it was something about strength, and what it means to be vulnerable to someone you love. Mac didn’t really get it until now, holding Dennis’ throat in his hand, razor held in the other, beginning to shake.

Dennis opens his eyes. “Mac,” he murmurs, low and painfully soft. There’s a question there in a language only Mac knows; it asks too many things he doesn’t know the answer to, demands more than he’s able to give. Dennis ghosts his fingers over Mac’s thigh, trailing slowly to the crux of his hip and thigh, and press down hard.

_Why do you have to be right?_

Mac dips his head and covers Dennis’ lips with his own. They’re both still for a long moment, frozen with indecision, but then Dennis’ arm winds around Mac’s hip and something terrible blossoms in the space between them. Mac bites down on Dennis’ lower lip, drawing an unsurprised but wounded noise from Dennis, and drops the razor so that he can fist a hand in the wiry overgrowth at the base of Dennis’ skull. If he clenches harder, presses closer, he can feel the knobs of Dennis’ spine against his sweating palm.

Dennis draws back for breath and Mac holds him closer, deepening the kiss from clumsy to outright obscene. It’s barely even kissing, really; he licks along the roof of Dennis’ mouth and can’t help but moan when Dennis goes lax beneath him. With his nose pressed against Dennis’ cheek, he’s overwhelmed by the sharp, cloying musk of shaving cream that lingers on his skin. He breathes in, deep and desperate; Dennis chases the inhale, mouth slack, and settles his hands on the small of Mac’s back to pull him closer. He seats himself on Dennis’ lap and grinds down, waiting for the breathless pressure of his cock against Dennis’ erection.

Except it isn’t there.

“Den -”

“Shit.”

“Dude -”

“ _Shit!_ ” Dennis growls, and pushes Mac off his lap. Mac stumbles, the floor beneath him falling away like quicksand, and collides with the desk. He braces himself against the edge, knees trembling. Dennis doesn’t look at him.

Mac swallows. “Dennis -”

“Get out.”

“I’m sorry, I thought -”

Dennis drops his head into his hands. “Just go, Mac,” he says, words smothered between his fingers. His shoulders have curved in on themselves, taut as elastic ready to snap. The tips of his ears are a bright, ugly red. Mac takes a shallow breath in and it’s like the world has collapsed in on itself, its scaffolding bowbent with a single, heavy strike; the roof has caved in and the dust is still finding places to settle. Mac pushes back from the table before it can make a home in his crevices.

“Fine,” he mutters. He crosses the room and grabs his jacket, his dick only just beginning to read the room and soften. The back of his neck prickles uncomfortably as he pulls his arms through the sleeves, and when he turns around Dennis is staring at him, something unreadable colouring his eyes. His lower lip juts out, bitten rosy and slick, and Mac clenches his fist around the keys in his pocket to keep from running his fingertips over his Cupid’s bow. 

_And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines._

His Dennis finds that part so funny.

“See you,” Mac says, ears ringing. He makes it to the door and hesitates, lips forming around words he didn’t know he could say, but there’s silence behind him; Dennis isn’t even going to say goodbye. Just like that, Mac can see their whole future spread out like a road map with no destination, the peaks and valleys of everything that will go unsaid. There’s an exit off the highway signposted in small, quietly cruel letters: _you can get off here, but you won’t_. 

Won’t, can’t - it doesn’t really matter. He spares one last look at Dennis, pathetically fragile and brighter than the morning star, and knows he’s made the wrong choice, whether it was his to make or not. 

It’s getting dark. The frat house is filling up, bodies pressed against bodies, but Mac couldn’t care less. He crosses back over the Schuylkill and walks the rest of the way home, eyes fixed to the horizon. Somewhere along 22nd his fingers ache, and he looks down to see his hand curled around the handle of Dennis’ razor.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://honeyreynolds.tumblr.com)


End file.
